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Hey I’m Stephen Schweickart with this episode of ReelSEO’s ReelRebel. We’ve given you
a brief rundown of how to crush that depth of field, now let’s focus on one of those
elements, the F-stop.
Here’s a lot of words for you so be sure to take notes. On a lens, the f-stop number
affects the size of the lens’ aperture by controlling the iris. Got it? No. OK here’s
a simpler explanation. Imagine your eye is the lens and the pupil is the aperture, or
size of the opening letting light into your eye. Your iris changes size in different situations
to make sure your retinas (I have no idea where those are so I can’t point to them)
don’t get fried from too much sunlight. On your eye, the iris controls itself automatically,
but on a camera it’s controlled on a scale of numbers called the F-Stop scale. And it’s
very important to understand how the scale works in order to keep control over your image.
So let’s take a look at it, shall we? The scale starts down here at one and can go all
the way up to 32 on a normal scale, with the amount of light decreasing as the number rises.
So an f/2.0 will let in more light than an f/11. That part is pretty straight forward.
Smaller numbers equals more light, which you know from our last depth of field video equals
shallower depth of field. You may think the numbers on this scale are arbitrary, but they
actually represent the ratio between the size of the aperture, and the focal length of the
lens, which is the distance from the aperture to the film plane where the image is captured.
Using a DSLR to shoot gives you a lot of simple options for maximizing your aperture so you
keep that depth of field nice and slim. First, put the camera on Manual. If Terminator taught
us anything it’s that you can’t trust machines and they may try to *** you in
order to keep your unborn son from leading the rebellion in the near future. Not sure
what that has to do with video, but nonetheless putting the camera on Auto is the first step
towards that future, do you really want that?
Anyway, putting the camera to manual let’s you first control the f-stop, which for now
we’ll assume you want as wide open as the lens will allow, letting in as much light
as possible. From here, DSLRs have a handy dandy feature that let’s you select what
ISO or sensitivity you want to shoot at. Now pay attention, this can get tricky. While
the lower the f-stop the more light you get, the HIGHER the ISO the more light you get.
So with the f-stop all the way open, you’ll likely need to lower the ISO to keep your
shots from being blown out. It’s a simple process, but it will take some tweaking.
PHEW! That was a lot of information, but once you process all of that mess you’ll have
a better understanding of f-stop, aperture, and iris, and ultimately will achieve ultimate
control over your image. We’re talking about your camera image, not your personal image...
that one, not salvageable.
Now there’s this cool thing right here I’d like you to focus on called a subscribe button,
and if you click it, you get FREE videos from us on a regular basis! Now that right there
is a deal!